The essential Mr. Bush, 2004

Something ominous has occurred over the last few decades, and we are paying a terrible price for allowing it to happen.

The courts have become the primary agency of self-definition in America. Our gridlocked legislators are now close to irrelevant. Of course, the media still have tremendous power, but they can only “propose.” It is the courts that “dispose” – they decide. And their misguided moral decisions over the years have proven to be disastrous. So much so that it can be said the legal system is now the greatest threat to America’s future. However, if you were a casual observer of the political scene, you’d never know it, thanks to our clueless media elite. And they’re not the only ones at fault.

The American elite in general has betrayed this country. Its members have left the public in a condition of almost total ignorance of our catastrophic situation. Their primary historic responsibility has always been to warn of danger and guard the essential ethics of our civilization. They have done neither.

Most Americans are uncomfortable with the word “elite,” but without some kind of guardian class, a group’s code of conduct is totally vulnerable to subversion. Doctors have the American Medical Association to stop those who falsely claim to be doctors. Lawyers have the American Bar Association to protect the essentials of the legal profession. But who defends Americans from those who falsely claim to adhere to our basic tenets – from those who falsely claim to be American? The two political parties used to do that. The elite in the media, academia, and the social elite in Washington and elsewhere used to be guardians. But who sounds the alarm at danger now?

The Republicans try, but the Democrats effectively neutralize them by contradicting (for political gain) everything the GOP says. And the intellectual elite shrugs as if both parties are equally credible – or equally incredible. Remember the Cold War? The media did the same thing, acting as if there was moral equivalence between the United States and an atheist Soviet Union. Well, there was no moral equivalence between those two systems – as history has fully revealed – and there is no moral equivalence between our two political parties either. One stands on the solid ground of tried and true principles, and the other stands on shifting sands of moral relativism, where current fashion dictates behavior.

These “two Americas” are headed for a monumental clash. Add the War on Terror to that, and the situation is even more dangerous than the Cold War, when at least we were reasonably unified against an outside force. Now there is no unity – nor any real prospect of it. We’re stuck with our two major parties, who are themselves waging “cold war,” one party representing an America most of us still recognize, and one representing an America we’ve never seen before in our history – an imposter nation (still pretending to be mainstream) increasingly embedded within this great nation of ours. I still hope for reconciliation, as do most traditional Americans, although the prospect of that is more and more remote. The American system of government seems almost defenseless against the internal hostility we see in the news almost every single day.

What do the citizens of this “imposter nation” believe? It is hard to tell. Of course, they can’t define right or wrong with any clarity. They can’t even define marriage. They cannot define patriotism (love of country) because they can’t define either “love” or “country.” They reject serious borders. They are at best confused about the war – and at worst, they are America-hating appeasers, ready to withdraw. They reject America’s unique place in history – something that helps define our very being. In fact, they reject Americans who hold any traditional views: They reject traditional faith, family, and in the end, they reject freedom, which they have redefined as being able to do whatever you want – in other words, rights without clearly defined responsibilities, without a reliable moral code.

The majority of Americans reject this nihilistic worldview, but the secular left presses on with the support of a clueless elite. They have one reliable weapon – the courts. Secularists are is in the process of overriding the firmly held beliefs of the majority by way of judicial fiat. Laws are no longer made to support historical America. Instead, judges make law in order to establish this new country within a country. We are losing an understanding of who we are and what we believe.

In his Farewell Address, Ronald Reagan warned us against the “eradication of the American memory.” Well, it’s happening. We are losing our identity. And this makes it almost impossible for us to lead the free world, or to even defend ourselves from terrorists who do not love the idea of liberty.

We’ve never faced such a dangerous enemy while being so poorly united here at home. We have become a family with two parents who increasingly have nothing in common, and worse, one of those parents hates the other and is effectively suing for divorce. But it’s about more than separation: Each parent wants the house – and custody of the children. One or the other will win.

Turning point

Now is a time of decision. We must choose who we are as a people. Voters will soon be going to the polls to actually pick a country. Sadly, most of us don’t really know that in fact this is what we are doing. Some conservatives, preoccupied by legitimate complaints about certain Bush decisions, are actually thinking of “third-party” voting. In an election where every vote counts this would be a disaster, not just because a vote for a conservative third party candidate would be a vote for John Kerry (and age-old argument against third parties) but even more because George Bush is absolutely the right man for the job. I believe he is essential to our future. Here’s why.

George W. Bush understands the choice our nation faces, just as Ronald Reagan understood it. I think President Bush knows that we have reached the pivot point in America’s effort to reclaim itself from 20th-century secularism. In his farewell address, President Reagan further warned Americans that although there was a resurgence of patriotism in America, it would not take hold unless we institutionalized this “new patriotism.” It couldn’t last if it was only a matter of popular opinion because the entrenched secular establishment described above would resist. Reagan knew we had to fight for America. And now that fight is fully joined.

Conservatives reading this must understand: A Bush defeat would be touted as a defeat of Reaganism. The similarities between the two presidents are startling. Both confronted and challenged the world to seek freedom over statism (secular or religious). Both encouraged the world to “the better angels of our nature.” And both are Christian in their worldview. This put them at odds with the secular liberal establishment, particularly the modern Democratic Party, which has increasingly turned its back on America’s Judeo-Christian traditions (dismissing them as matters of private belief, irrelevant to public policy).

Just listen to Ronald Wilson Reagan talking to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983, his famous “Evil Empire” speech. This is the Reagan you won’t hear about from the secular media:

“I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities – the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

“Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.”

None of us has to guess which party most fits that description – and which party doesn’t. The two major parties, in their social-political views, represent two entirely different nations – one is uncomfortable with the idea of a nation “under God,” and one is inspired by it, inspired by what Reagan called “the rule of law under God.” Most liberals do not understand the political significance of rejecting Reagan’s view. They don’t realize that once we are under “law” rooted in nothing more than human whim (national or global), we are following the exact same dangerous path of Communism and Nazism, two secular systems of government that ended up “lawfully” murdering multi-millions of people.

A great deal is at stake. Think of George W. Bush as a “general” in the current struggle to reclaim America from secularism. He is the commander in chief and he is acting like one. He is picking his battles, prioritizing his “troop placement” and avoiding being drawn into battles that might distract from the larger victory, without which all is lost. And that means the courts. A man like that does not come along very often. That is why liberals hate him just exactly as they hated Ronald Reagan. They hate Bush’s confidence. They hate his faith – which they do not understand. But most of all they hate his decisive way of thinking – his logical mind – which is an anathema to the confused, consensus-driven, emotionalized thinking of PC secularists.

President Bush is a typical “bottom line” guy, not just because of his business background, but because he was trained that way as far back as his traditional prep school. Not everyone learns the lesson but he clearly did. You can tell, not only by listening to him but also by looking at the people with whom he surrounds himself – Chaney, Rumsfeld, Rice and the like. These people are traditional thinkers. Emotions do not rule over them. They are cool under fire – all of them. Just read Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If” and you will know how these people were educated – whether in public school or private.

They believe there is truth, and that truth is expressed in fixed principles. They guide their thinking by these principles. This allows a person to know what’s essential and what is non-essential in achieving goals. It allows a person to choose those goals wisely in the first place – and then pursue them wisely and aggressively. And this, coupled with faith, is what gives Bush and his loyalists that personal “confidence,” which the left finds so annoying (and which is so dangerous to our global enemies). Bush, like Reagan before him, is a man on a mission, and like Reagan, he has established his priorities. The attacks of 9-11 added to those priorities but they did not subtract from the essential one – stopping the ever-growing judicial tyranny.

“We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God,” Bush said after the 9th Circuit rejection of the “under God” Pledge of Allegiance. Bush had already declared during his 2000 campaign that he would appoint “strict constructionists” and not judges who “write social policy” from the bench.

You cannot fully understand George W. Bush as a president unless you understand this priority. I believe that President Bush decided long ago that the only way to win this fight was to win it by giving America new judges, men and women who adhered to historical interpretation of the Constitution and want to leave law-making to legislators, where “the will of the majority” is accurately ascertained and expressed. The secular judges who seek to build the new “imposter nation” are perfectly willing to make things up as they go along – because as secularists, they do not believe in truth. Truth is what they say it is. Let’s face it: We are frighteningly close to having a Supreme Court willing to establish itself as God – the final moral arbiter of right and wrong.

George Bush has realized that we don’t need mere nominal conservatives on the court; we need genuine, believing conservatives who serve a truth higher than themselves. That’s why the liberal Democrats are in a tizzy trying to stop him (and it’s going to get a lot worse). They don’t mind a “Christian” on the court as long as he or she doesn’t actually “believe that stuff.” Devout Catholics, for example, need not apply. For secularists, people like Bush are “ideologues” (a buzzword for “believer”). They know that with a president like George W. Bush in power they cannot hope for the appointment of “liberal-lite,” secular conservatives or “Chinos” (Christians in name only).

If you object to the idea of “Chinos,” remember your history: Adolf Hitler had no problem with “Christians” who would accept him as Messiah, what the Nazis called “Positive Christianity” or “German Christianity.” Many thousands of “Chinos” did accept him in that way, exchanging the cross for the swastika. This really happened; they even tossed out most of the Bible as too “Jewish.”

Along with his hatred for Jews (who were given no “opportunity” to convert to Naziism), Hitler’s problem was with Bible-based Christians who actually believed that stuff. In other words, Christians who believed there was a higher authority than the Nazi state. A modern American version of this age-old struggle is going on now. Consider Robert Reich’s recent rejection of Americans who believe in a higher authority than government. A prominent Democrat, and Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Reich’s not kidding.

Again, the simple and very ancient question: Is the state God, or is the state “under God?” You can be sure of George Bush’s answer, just as you were sure of Ronald Reagan’s.

Look at the men and women Bush has nominated as federal appellate judges. Now imagine what a Bush Supreme Court would look like. The left knows this, and feels seriously threatened. After more than 100 years of quietly aggressive secularism, they know Americans are waking up. They know that Bush is serious in his efforts and that he will persist. Yes, he will compromise as he did with the Senate Judiciary Committee recently, but not on essentials. Watch for the Supreme Court battle to come if there’s a conservative victory this November.

Despite congressional efforts, I do not believe this country can avoid being overwhelmed by the new “PC Amerika” unless we start replacing their politically correct judges with our own more traditional judges. Bush clearly knows this and has set a course of action just as any general would.

He keeps the primary domestic goal in front of him at all times – winning the “culture war,” which as others have pointed out is actually the struggle between radical secularism and America’s Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, inevitably, President Bush is going to disappoint many people by his unwillingness to fight battles that could keep him from winning this larger war. And yes, that means some very important issues will get thrown over the side, whether it’s federal spending or illegal immigration or so-called assault rifles. All of these are crucial issues, but ironically, none of them will matter if we continue to have judges who legislate from the bench in a “progressive” effort to change America under force of law.

Conservatives (Christian or otherwise) need to pay attention to this. No matter how precious your political priority, it must be considered in the light of the larger struggle. Any issue that allows radical secularists (Christian or otherwise) to undermine President Bush’s political credibility, anything that loses him important allies, or takes serious energy or focus away from his top priorities becomes an enemy of the primary goal – to save America from those who would use the court system to redefine our political soul without our permission.

Thus President Bush must not be drawn into political battles he cannot win – or those where victory will not help him win the essential struggle to reclaim America for the people. He must keep his eye on “the ball,” and that means the judges. That’s not part of the ball. That is the whole ball – and the only thing that competes with it when it comes to the survival of traditional America is the War on Terror. We cannot lose either fight.